There were no surprises in the bottom three. The voters chose the same ones that I did (Hollie, Deandre and Elise). Hollie surprisingly was sent to safety first (I was pretty sure she was cooked, and I sort of expected Elise to be the first one safe). Deandre got the green weenie this week instead, though Elise thought that it was her for a moment before she realized that Ryan said “the one who will sing for their life” instead of “the one who is safe”. That must have been a rough couple of seconds.
Deandre seems like a really good kid, and between his looks, singing talent and charisma he’ll do fine down the road. He’s barely 17, though. It’s going to be awhile. The only thing that I wish he’d done is pull out his ukulele for a song. He has several videos on Youtube with the Uke, and they are pretty cool.
I skipped the band who played, and I watched Kelly Pickler just to compare her to Skylar. Kelly finished sixth in her season, and honestly she ain’t all that great of a singer. Skylar is better, and she is a year younger than Kelly was on the show. Kelly looked really old, didn’t she? She’s only 24, but she looks like she’s been getting botox treatments already.
Power Rankings
7- Hollie: She dodged the bullet this week, but she’s going to have to sing in tune and hope someone else has a bad night to survive next week. She is the only one of the seven that I don’t expect to be saved if she’s the bottom vote-getter.
6- Elise: Her voting bloc is obviously not a very large one, since she lands in the bottom three every time the judges don’t genuflect. She’ll be nervous next week, and she probably should be. Hollie might have a bigger base to work from.
5- Skylar: She took herself off the hard chairs with a strong pimp slot performance this week. With Phil andColton above her, she’ll have a hard time avoiding them again for the rest of her run on the show. It won’t matter where she finishes anyway. Jimmy probably already has her contract filled out.
4- Phil: Cracks in his figurative armor, or maybe some light shined on his lack of clothing? Mike Slezak is the most read Idol reviewer on the internet, with followers in the hundreds of thousands. He was a huge Phil-Phil fan until last night. I copied and pasted the review below, verbatim, from Slezak’s website last night.
Phillip Phillips: Genesis’ “That’s All”| The judges raved and raved, which made me wonder if I was insane for thinking there wasn’t a single note in tune. Of course, once upon a time folks applauded for a naked emperor, too.
Phil-Phil might be starting to irritate the judges and mentors, too, with his “I’m too cool to slap hands, I’m Bob Freaking Dylan, you monkeys” act. Last week I would have taken 2-1 odds on him to win. This week I wouldn’t take 20-1.
3- Colton: He has about run out of tricks, and his voice is fairly pedestrian. I had him and Phil ranked 1-2 for a couple of weeks, but they were both blown off the stage by the new top two this week, both individually and in their duet. Only his gender and skin tone keep him from competing with Hollie at the bottom now.
2- Joshua: He is growing in popularity, losing the Lusky Stank. Elise might have been the cool underdog pick a week ago, but Joshua might be the one who is going to peak at the right time.
1- Jessica: Her Youtube view counts are hard to get my head around. She has over 120,000 already for last night. Skylar is second with just under 60,000. Nobody else is over 50k; Hollie, Elise and Phil are under 30k. Jessica’s performance video from last week has already been viewed 1.173 million times. It’s not going to be easy to beat her.
Bob Gregory's Gallery of Renown 